Shrewsbury hosts National Cyclo-Cross Championships this weekend

This year’s British Cycling National Cyclo-Cross Championships will be held at Shrewsbury Sports Village this weekend. Local club Mid Shropshire Wheelers are the organisers of an event that will see over 600 competitors involved.

Practice around the challenging 3km course took place yesterday (Friday) afternoon with competitive action beginning today at 9.30am with the veteran women’s race. Entry is free both today and tomorrow.

Dave Mellor, organiser for Mid Shropshire Wheelers, told Shropshire Live that the event had been a couple of years in the planning.

“A national championship has to go onto the international calendar and we were approached well over two years ago. The Sports Village have had it on their books for that long and we’ve been looking at and slowly developing the course with Shrewsbury Town Council’s Countryside Unit to make it a really good challenge for the riders, as befits a national championship.

“Hosting this is the pinnacle of anything we can do as a club in organisational terms. It’s the highest you can go and for a small, provincial club like ours with 300 members and a really good kids section, it’s just fantastic. Hopefully it will showcase what cycling’s about and inspire more youngsters to get involved. It’s a fantastic event to be able to bring to the town and I know the local hotels are pretty much fully booked. I just hope we get a lot of spectators coming along and that everybody enjoys themselves.”

Today will see a number of veteran races as well as under-14 and under-16 boys and girls races, while tomorrow will feature the categories that go forward to the World Championships.

The men’s under-23 race kicks things off at 9.30am followed by a combined race for under-23 and junior women and then a junior men’s under-18s race. The afternoon will see the elite women’s race at 1.15pm and then the elite men’s race at 2.30pm.